Facebook Marketing For The Real Estate Industry

The advent of technology has introduced new ways of socializing between humans.  Facebook has been one of these successful developments and it has fallen into what is refered to as social networking.  This can open up a new source of promotion for real estate if used intelligently.

Using social networking sites like Facebook to market your real estate business  can be a tricky procedure.  Think about it this way.  If you were in a room with all your friends, you wouldn’t constantly be promoting your business, trying to sell them things. If you did, you would soon find that you would have no friends left. 

The social networking world is the same, just that they are your online friends and acquaintances.  You must tread lightly when promoting your business.  But if you are friendly, well liked and respected you will naturally gain real estate business from your online friends as you would your offline friends.

So how can you use Facebook to your marketing advantage.  Well Facebook is a good way to remind your friends and acquaintances that real estate is how you make your living. Your job or business is a very big part of your personal life and should not be absent from your online profile.   Make sure you profile information is up to date with your company information and website details. You should have listed as much about your business as possible in your information tab.  This is just more of a subtle type of “advertisement” but it can be very effective.  Remember in the end Facebook should be personal so don’t overdue your business information.

The following advice assumes you have knowledge on how to use Facebook.  If not, bookmark this article, sign up and then come back when you’re comfortable with the system.

Facebook Real Estate Status

One of the most basic features of Facebook is the status update.  Here are some Facebook status updates worth considering for real estate agents:

    1. Heading to my open house at 215sundance.com
    2. Frustrated with seller's agent,  he won't return my calls!!!!!
    3 Lighthouse point development has remarkable views of the water.
    4. Just listed 60 Hutchinson Crt. Great for young families.
    5. Just got an offer from a client. Looks good!

“Messages like this remind your friends and family that you're out there working on behalf of clients every day. You're not selling but reminding them that you work in real estate so when it comes time for them to make their next real estate transaction you'll come to mind. And, of course, it has the potential to lead to more referrals from your friends and family members. “  - Tecnology Evangelist.

Actively Market Yourself On Facebook

Of course, few friends will want to hear about your work life 24-7 so try to figure out an appropriate balance of work and non-work related updates and a post volume that your network will find reasonable.
If you want to actively promote you business on Facebook there are three ways of doing so.

1)Group – Groups are good places to have general information about your real estate business but they are limited mostly due to privacy concerns.  Only Facebook members can see these groups and they are therefore blocked by the search engines. Price:  free to create.

2) Pages –Allow for people to become fans of your business and can be seen by everyone in the world wide web.  You would never see a Facebook group show up in Google search engine but you will find that the Facebook pages will. In summary why pages are better than groups on Facebook:

• Facebook groups cannot be found through Google.
• Because of the URL structure, a Facebook page shows up high in the Google rankings when people search for your organization or business name.

Now the last thing you need is to constantly keep updating this page.  Set up your notes section to pull off the RSS feed from your own blog.  That way the content will be refreshed without you having to go through the work of actually creating new content.  This is what I set up for my Vancouver and PEI real estate clients. 

You can also use Facebook pages as your fan list as a way to stay in touch by using it as a type of newsletter list.  Send your real estate contests and promotions out to your fans when appropriate. 
Price: Free to create, can cost money if you decide to promote.
 

3) PPC Advertising – these can be ads that take you right to products/website or they can be promotions for your Facebook pages  in general.  The prices for these clicks are similar to what you would be paying for Google Adwords.  The main difference with Facebook ads is the amount of targeting you can have as who the ads are shown to.  For example you can narrow down :sex, age, locations and Facebook will even scan for keywords that are in people’s profiles.  There are many ways in which you could use targeting criteria to your advantage.

Have a house that is perfect for a certain age group in your city? Advertise it.  Of course keep in mind that not all people are going to be on Facebook where as pretty much everyone on the net uses search engines. Adwords would have a greater reach.   Condos designed for young professional males? Target area, profession, age.  The possibilities are endless.  They is no need to use the shotgun approach.

Check out a nother post for a better understanding on Facebook advertising for real estate.

Price: varies

If you find yourself confused about the changing technology used for real estate then check out Top Search Result where we can assist your transition into the online world, stress free.

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